Find PHP version and options of your server

In this article I'm going to quickly show you how you can find the PHP version of your server creating a PHP info page, this will also allow you to see the options PHP is using and any active PHP extensions.

Why does PHP version matter?

As PHP has been updated over the years, each new version typically introduces better security practices, and new features to take advantage of. Typically if you're trying to run PHP software on your website, it will require a minimal or specific PHP version, and also possibly the need for certain extensions to be enabled, or certain values entered in for the various setting options.

Creating a PHP info page

Using the steps below I'll show you how to create a PHP info page that will allow you to not only see your PHP version, but also all the PHP options that are currently in use.

Then click on Save Changes at the top-right hand corner of the screen.

Now if you visit your website such as http://example.com/info.php you should see the PHP info page. This example screen shot shows that this server is running PHP version 5.2.17, and that the PHP configurations are getting loaded from the file /home/userna5/public_html/php.ini

You can scroll further down the PHP info page, to also see individual PHP options that you can set.

Changing PHP version

Now that you know how to check what version of PHP is running on your server, you might also be interested in changing it.